Foraging Opportunities

These projects aim to assist producers find profitability in the
market place by assisting them in enhancing economic growth,
prosperity and sustainability by extending the grazing season,
increasing production, lowering input costs, and promoting
diversity in crops.

In addition to strategies for preserving natural resources and
changing production practices, sustainable agriculture requires a
commitment to effecting social change. A wide diversity of
strategies and approaches are necessary to create a more
sustainable food system. Social sustainability will see improved
land use, labour, rural community development and increased
opportunities and cooperative relationships for family and
community members.

Consumers can play a critical role in creating a sustainable
food system. Through their purchases, they send strong messages to
producers, retailers and others in the system about what they think
is important. Food cost and nutritional quality have always
influenced consumer choices. The challenge is to find strategies
that broaden consumer perspectives, so that environmental quality,
resource use, and social equity issues are also considered in
shopping decisions.

With the development of lower heat unit corn, the potential for corn production has expanded in the west central region of Alberta. This project compares three new corn varieties by Thunder Seeds, against an established Monsanto variety, to evaluate their suitability for winter feeding cattle....
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This field scale trial is being done with Sturgeon River Stock Farm, Onoway AB and was completed in partnership with Therese Thompkins, Agri-Trend. A comparison of oats, triticale and corn winter grazing was done. A write up will be in a future issue of Forage Views with the complete results and pr...
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The grain and livestock industries have been well served
through the advent of the Regional Variety Testing program in
Alberta and the subsequent publishing of results in seed.ab.ca.
However, one key element was missing. As cattle producers
grow ever increasing amounts of annual crops for feed ...
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This research will focus on evaluating low heat unit varieties of corn in an effort to reduce winter feeding costs for beef cattle in western Canada. This will be accomplished by evaluating the agronomics of growing corn across a number of locations in Alberta and Saskatchewan and by evaluating fe...
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The objectives of this project were to see if triticale (winter and spring varieties) were a viable option (in terms of nutritional quality, cost of production, utilization and palatably) when compared to other cereal forage crops. The project set out to determine how different varieties of spring...
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This report outlines a study designed to determine the potential effects of cattle grazing on deciduous regeneration following clear cutting of deciduous stands and under proper range management. It was accessed as to whether or not managed cattle grazing at two levels of cattle stocking rates two ...
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Peas and oats, barley or triticale, or a combination of spring cereals with winter wheat, winter triticale or fall rye, are the two common types of intercropping. Peas are usually included in mixes to improve the quality of the feed....
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In today's farming industry, where sustainability and low input costs are key, sainfoin has a major role to play.
The use of all legumes - including sainfoin - started to decline in Western countries from the 1930s with the advent of cheap nitrogen and new strains of highly productive grasses...
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